Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

Professional football in America? Here the question is posed: What’s more pathetic 1] the sport 2] the players or 3] the fans.

Okay, I admit it: that’s the narrative I read into it. Reflecting my own prejudices as it were. Being that I hold, well, all three in contempt. Beer and circuses? On the other hand, I also have to acknowledge that my own assessment here is no less rooted existentially in dasein.

But here, as with most things: different strokes, different folks.

Paul is one of those football fanatics who make, let’s say, frequent calls into sports talk radio; but only first having written down everything he is going to say. His whole fucking life revolves around any given Sunday. No way though can he afford to actually buy a ticket to the games. Instead, he sits in the parking lot and watches it on a TV hooked up to the car battery.

And then one day out of the blue he spots his hero pumping gas…

Admittedly, the ending [in the bar] threw me for a loop. I thought this [as we were intended] and it was that instead. Clever.

Director Robert D. Siegel has said that between takes in the strip club, while other members of cast and crew were enjoying the company of dancers, actor Patton Oswalt was watching episodes of John Adams on his iPod in a private room.

Originally planned to be a straight-forward comedy titled “Paul Aufiero” but Robert D. Siegel personally re-wrote his script into a drama. IMDb

Trust me: It’s funny enough.


Big Fan

Sal: Dude, you were on fire.
Paul: I feel like it needed to be said.
Sal: The part about how they should get out their forks ‘cause they’re gonna be eating their words? That’s fuckin’ beautiful.
Paul: Yeah. I guess I just have a gift.

Right. Instead, again, he writes everything down before calling into the station.

Paul: Hey, Sports Dogg. How ya doing? Um, I just got one thing to say to Eagle Nation, especially a certain Philadelphia Phil, and that is…ha! Ha ha ha! Just like I promised, we manhandled you on Sunday. For 60 solid minutes, we dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Quantrell Bishop was in your face all day long. What happened to shutting him down? Two sacks, seven tackles, two forced fumbles, and a fumble recovery? If that’s shutting him down, I’d hate to see not shutting him down! Ha! Quantrell was in your backfield so much, I almost mistook him for an Eagle!

Quantrell Bishop. Remember that name.

Paul: He’s a cheat. He fucked her while he was still married.
Mom: Don’t say that word in my car.
Paul: Which one? “Fucked” or “cheat”?
Mom: You know.
Paul: It’s what he did. He fucked her. For years while he was married.
Mom: Stop it. I don’t want that language in my car.
Paul: Oh, so it’s worse for me to say it than for him to do it?
Mom: Cut it out, Paul.
Paul: No, I wanna know. Is it worse for me to say, “Jeff fucked his secretary,” than it is for Jeff to fuck his secretary?

New thread?

Paul: I date.
Mom: Oh, sure. You’re dating lots of girls.
Paul: You don’t think I date?
Mom: I know exactly who you’re dating. Your hand.

And she's got the evidence to prove it.

Doctor [to Paul in the hospital after Quantrell Bishop beats the shit out of him over a misunderstanding in a bar]: Hematoma. It’s a bleeding from the vein between the brain and the skull. Fortunately, we were able to successfully drain it.
Paul: So I’m gonna be okay?
Doctor: You sustained some pretty heavy trauma, but long-run, you should be. We do need to keep you another few days for observation.
Paul: Another…few days? How long have I been here?
Doctor: Three days.
Paul: Three days. So…So the day is… Sunday?
Doctor: Monday.
Sal: Monday.
Paul [to Sal]: So, how did we do?
[Sal shakes his head]
Paul: What was the score?
Sal: 41-28.
Paul [incredulous]: We gave up 41 points to the Chiefs?!

Enough said?

Jeffery: I’ve been thinking.
Paul: Uh oh. That’s never good!
Jeffery: What this animal did to you, he’s gotta pay. We gotta hit him where it hurts-- in his wallet.
Paul: I don’t wanna be one of those assholes that sues Burger King for 50 billion because their Whopper’s too hot.
Jeffery: We are not talking about Whoppers here, Paul. We are talking about a rich, spoiled, millionaire athlete who viciously beat an innocent man within an inch of his life. Do you not think, we, as a society, have an obligation to hold its celebrities to the same...
Paul: What’s that thing where instead of saying “won’t,” you say “will not”? Or instead of saying “can’t,” you say “cannot”?
Jeffery: Contractions?
Paul: You stop using them whenever you want to sound smart or lawyerly...
Jeffery: Don’t be a fuckin’ wise ass, Paul! This is serious!
Paul: You don’t care about justice. You just want money.
Jeffery: What the fuck’s wrong with you, you thickheaded motherfucker? This motherfucker does not give a fuck about you. He is in his mansion playing his Xbox.

They're both right, of course.

[iambiguous]

Big Fan

Jeffery [to Paul]: How do you get a concussion when you don’t got any fucking brains?

Yeah, how about that sports fans?

Philadelphia Phil [on radio]: Hey, how you doin’, Dogg? Oh, my God, I’m loving this. All right, that bunch of thugs that you call a team up there is showing their true colors for the whole world to see. All right? They’re just a bunch of dirty, no-good hooligan animals, all right, from Bishop on down.
Paul [on radio]: Hey, Dogg, how you doing? Um, listen, I’m just calling in response to that pea-brain Philadelphia Phil. I’m listening here. It’s unbelievable! I mean, you ever hear of innocent until proved guilty? It’s a little thing called the American Constitution. Maybe you should look it up. Now, we don’t know what happened at that club. We weren’t there! I mean, maybe-- maybe… unless-- unless they charge QB with something, they gotta let him play. They gotta let him play.

I actually grew up around all of this. It actually did made sense once.

Paul reading newspaper headlines: BISHOP CASE DROPPED…QB TO START SUNDAY

The fool!
Right?

Paul [reading from the newspaper]: “In an unexpected turn of events, the lawyer for alleged...”
Jeffery: I’m taking a fuckin’ shit here!
Paul: “The lawyer for alleged Quantrell Bishop beating victim Paul Aufiero yesterday filed a $77 million lawsuit–”
Jeffery: Can we discuss this after I wipe my ass?
Paul: “…against the star linebacker in federal court on behalf of his client”?

Uh, two different worlds?

Jeffery: I know you’re a fan of this guy, but you gotta stop looking at him as some kind of fuckin’ hero and start looking at him as some big, black, moulinyan jack-off asshole that gave you brain damage!
Paul: Hey, my brain’s fine.
Jeffery: Yeah.

Leaving out the racial slur and the motive, I still gotta go with Jeff on this one. On the other hand…

Paul: It was an accident. The whole thing was a misunderstanding. He was drunk! He-- He was out trying to have a good time with his friends.

That’s true. But, uh, still?

Sal [visiting Paul in jail]: Oh, oh! Hey, hey, hey. Hey…
Paul: What? It’s out?!
Sal: Hot off the press, from today’s Post.
Paul [looking at the Giants schedule]: Oh, my God. This is cake!

Yeah, who makes up these schedules anyway?

Paul: Oh, man.
Sal: What?
Paul: New England, December 20th. I get out of jail that week! Oh, man. Patsies are toast. There’s no way we’re losing with us in the parking lot.
Sal: Not a chance. 15 and 1.
Paul: Totally realistic.
Sal: Oh, man.
Paul: Oh, man. It’s gonna be a great year.

Just out of curiosity, was it?

[iambiguous]

Denis Diderot from Jacques the Fatalist

Life is but a series of misunderstandings.

Ours here, however, are in a class all their own.

The fact is that she was terribly undressed and I was extremely undressed too. The fact is that I still had my hand where she didn't have anything and she had hers where the same wasn't quite true of me. The fact is that I found myself underneath her and consequently she found herself on top of me.

It can work either way though.

It is better to reveal a weakness than allow oneself be suspected of a vice.

Okay, but which one? This time.

No matter how much a man may study, reflect and meditate on all the books in the world, he is nothing more than a minor scribe unless he has read the great book.

Unless, of course, he simply prefers not to.

To speak to you frankly, Reader, I find that you are the more wicked of the two of us. How satisfied would I be if it were as easy for me to protect myself from your calumny as it is for you to protect yourself from the boredom or the danger of my work!

Next up: me here?

Because, without knowing what is written up above, none of us knows what we want or what we are doing, and we follow our whims which we call reason, or our reason which is often nothing but a dangerous whim which sometimes turns out well, sometimes badly.

Whims R Us.

[iambiguous]

It’s truly scary because in so many apalling ways, people can be. And if I were a pregnant woman, I wouldn’t watch this film in a million years.

Why are films like this made? I don’t know. I may as well ask myself why I watch them.

The victim here is a woman. Nothing unusual there. But so is the monster that stalks her. And that doesn’t happen very often in the horror genre.

From time to time the horror on display here makes it into the news. Someone will attack a pregnant woman solely in order to steal her unborn baby. What a fucking world, eh? Something is always much more frightening if you can actually imagine it happening to you or to someone you love. After all, there are not too many vampires or zombies or werewolves around.

And the maniacs are always the worst. You can’t reason with them. Only she is not exactly a maniac here. She has her reasons.

The ending is a twist some will see coming and some will not.

Again, look for Betty Blue.


Inside [À l’intérieur]

The woman [sitting next to Sarah in hospital]: It’s horrible, the first one. In my case it took 13 hours to deliver it. Oh, murder. I mean murder. I was in such fucking pain. He put me through all that…but he was born dead.

Not that he knew this of course.

Sarah: I don’t give a shit about Christmas.
Jean Pierre: You won’t be saying that next year, I guarentee it.

He won’t be saying much then either.

The woman on the other side of the door: Your husband’s not asleep, Sarah. He’s dead.
Sarah: Who are you? How do you know my name?
The woman: Open the door and you’ll find out.

Or don't open it and find out.

Sarah [locked in the bathroom]: Why me?
The woman: I want one.
Sarah: What kind of man would fuck a maniac like you?
The woman: You don’t want the child and I will take good care of it.
Sarah: What are you talking about?

Go ahead, actually try to reason with her.

Prisoner [handcuffed to the third dead cop]: Hey lady! She’s still in here! She’s still in here!

Somebody always is, right?

Sarah [to the woman]: They told me there were no survivors.

And isn't that all we can go by sometimes...what others tell us?

Sarah: It’s stuck!

You can’t help but weep for this baby’s future.

[promethean75]

"There will be no childless cat-ladies in the white house. Get kuhMAla Harris and Pete Buttigieg outta there, now" - J.D. Vance

[iambiguous]

A true story and/or based on actual events: It’s mostly true. Or at least it’s mostly not false?

Not often do you see it going in this direction: girl to boy, woman to man. But for the working class beasties out there, queer is queer. Only this way they can go in a whole other direction.

Out in the boonies with the loonies. Out in the sticks with the hicks.

It’s really hard to get your head wrapped around it though. Or it was for mine. It’s just almost always the other way around. She’s a woman. And she likes other women. But as she imagines a man would like other women—sexually, romatically, emotionally. And some women like “him” because they can clearly see how different “he” is from the redneck assholes they are used to having around them.

Believe it or not, folks are born and raised in places like this all the time. Places they get stuck in. Some for the entire length of their lives.

To prepare for her role, Hilary Swank lived life as a man for at least a month, including wrapping her chest in tension bandages and putting socks down the front of her pants much the same way that Brandon Teena did.

Hilary Swank won the lead role of Brandon/Teena after hundreds of other actresses had been considered and rejected over the course of three years. She told director Kimberly Peirce that, like her character, she was also 21 and came from Lincoln, Nebraska. But she was fibbing, and when Pierce later confronted her with the lies, she responded, “But that’s what Brandon would do.”

Hilary Swank was paid about $3,000 for her role. IMDb

Brandon Teena at wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Teena


Boys Don't Cry

Lonny: So you’re a boy. Now what?

Trouble bound let's say.

Nicole: You don’t seem like you’re from here.
Brandon: Where does it seem like I’m from?
Nicole: Someplace…beautiful.

Going to someplace very, very ugly.

Boys outside the trailer: You fuckin’ dyke!
Brandon: Damn, there’s a lot of ‘em!
Lonny: What have you done?!
Boys outside the trailer: Your fuckin’ faggot cousin, too!
Lonny: What is the matter with you?
Brandon: I don’t know! I don’t know what went wrong!
Lonny: You are not a boy! That is what went wrong! You are not a boy!
Brabdon: But they say I’m the best boyfriend they ever had.

Note to the Nazis here among us: yeah, what about that?!

Lonny: Do you want your mother to lock you up again? Is that what you want?
Brandon: No.
Lonny: Then why don’t you just admit that you’re a dyke?
Brandon: Because I’m not a dyke.

Or sort of not one?

John [to Brandon]: You’ve got the tiniest hands.

And then [one day] he finds out why.

Brandon: Lana, you are one cranky girl.
Lana: You’d be cranky, too, Mr I’m-Going- To-Memphis-Graceland-Tennessee, if you were stuck where there’s nothin’ to do but go bumper-skiing and chase bats.

Bumper skiing? Don’t ask.

[iambiguous]

Meaning

“Death is our constant companion, and it is death that gives each person's life its true meaning.” Paulo Coelho

Right, it's true meaning. Which may well be that there is no true meaning.

“Sex means nothing--just the moment of ecstasy, that flares and dies in minutes.” Philip Larkin

Of course: he must be doing it wrong. Unless, perhaps, he's right?

“When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” Margery Williams Bianco.

Now that takes me back some.

“I like a good story and I also like staring at the sea-- do I have to choose between the two?” David Byrne

Musically, he means. On the other hand, whatever that means?

“Words can be meaningless. If they are used in such a way that no sharp conclusions can be drawn.” Richard P. Feynman

Well, other than theoretically, of course,

“The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless.” Umberto Eco

Ah, another "world of words"?

[iambiguous]

Boys Don't Cry

Tom [putting his hand in the fire and keeping it there]: You ever try this?
Brandon: Tom, did you set your own family’s house on fire?
Tom [pulls out a knife and shows Brandon a bunch of scars on his body—he’s a cutter]: What about this? You ever do this?
Brandon: What the fuck, Tom?
Tom: Some people punch holes in walls. This…helps snap me back into reality. Gets control of this thing inside of me, so I don’t lash out at someone else. Me and John used to do it to ourselves all the time in lockup. I could always go deeper than him. He was such a wuss.

No girlie guys here!

Brandon: I can’t believe you worked last night. You must be exhausted.
Lana: Me neither. I do it all the time, though. You don’t have to be sober to weigh spinach.

Not unlike posting here?

Brandon: Please…Please don’t get mad. One night. One night and I’m gone. They’re not gonna lock me up, are they?
Lonny: Teena, how the fuck do I know what they’re gonna do? I’m sick of watchin’ you fuck up.
Brandon: But…but I’m not fuckin’ up. It is so good down there, Lonny.
Lonny: In Falls City? They hang faggots down there. Did you know that?

There's quite a few things he doesn't particuularly grasp "down there".

Brandon [showing Lonny a picture of Lana]: Look. See, isn’t she beautiful?
Lonny: Yeah, if you like white trash.
Brandon: I’m gonna ask her to marry me.
Lonny: Before or after your sex-change operation? Before or after you tell her you’re a girl?

You sympathize with “him” but almost everything about him seems to be on the surface.

Lana: I quit.
Brandon: Quit what?
Lana: My evil job. I’ve just been thinkin’ and thinkin’, what am I doin’ here? And then it came to me…I’ll go to Memphis with you.
Brandon: Memphis?
Lana: I got it all figured out. You’re right. I’ll make money singin’ karaoke…
Brandon: Lana…
Lana: You’ll manage me, and, if I’m no good, you’ll sing and I’ll manage you. Perfect. Nothin’ can go wrong if we’re together.
Brandon: Lana, um…it’s a little more complicated than that, you know?

Tell that to "him" though. Instead, he wants to stay right there in Falls City and open up a brand new trailer park.

Lana: Candace, why do you look so funny?

Why did these scumbags have to kill her?

Lana [visiting Brandon in jail]: Brandon, what’s goin’ on?
Brandon: You want the truth, don’t ya? It sounds a lot more complicated than it is. I’m a hermaphrodite.
Lana: What?
Brandon: Come here. It’s a person who has both…girl and boy parts. Brandon’s real name is Teena Brandon. Well, see, Brandon’s not quite a he. Brandon’s more like a sh…
Lana: Shut up. It’s your business. Look, I don’t care if you’re half monkey or half ape. I’m gettin’ you outta here.

True love. Or as close to it this day and age?

Lana’s Mom: I don’t want “it” in my house.

The "heartland" let's call it.

John [to Lana’s mom]: That is a bunch of bull. If I wanted to rape somebody, I got Mallory.

Sounds like something he'd say. And actually believe.

Brandon’s voice in a letter to Lana: “Dear Lana, By the time you read this I’ll be back home in Lincoln. I’m scared of what’s ahead, but when I think of you I know I’ll be able to go on. You were right, Memphis isn’t that far off. I’ll be taking that trip down the highway before too long. I’ll be waiting for you. Love always and forever, Brandon.”

Maybe in another lifetime.

[iambiguous]

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Language is a labyrinth of paths. You approach from one side and know your way about; you approach the same place from another side and no longer know your way about.

Let's start here: dasein.

In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it, there is no value, - and if there were, it would be of no value.

Pick two:
1] Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
2] Philosophical Investigations

In philosophy it is always good to put a question instead of an answer to a question. For an answer to the philosophical question may easily be unfair; disposing of it by means of another question is not.

You first.

People nowadays think that scientists exist to instruct them, poets, musicians, etc. to give them pleasure. The idea that these have something to teach them - that does not occur to them.

On the other hand [as we all know by now] not much does.

Christianity is not a doctrine, not, I mean, a theory about what has happened & will happen to the human soul, but a description of something that actually takes place in human life.

After all, it says so in the Bible.

Man feels the urge to run up against the limits of language. Think for example of the astonishment that anything at all exists. This astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question, and there is also no answer whatsoever. Anything we might say is a priori bound to be nonsense. Nevertheless we do run up against the limits of language. Kierkegaard too saw that there is this running up against something, and he referred to it in a fairly similar way (as running up against paradox). This running up against the limits of language is ethics.

A priori nonsense? Let's name names.

[iambiguous]

Based on a true story.

Here the Holocaust is experienced by a boy who is just 14 years old. How does that make any difference? Well, he is not yet a “fully formed” adult. So this changes him in a way that someone older might not be able to entirely understand or appreciate. But ultimately his reaction is rooted in dasein. In the life he has lived. And that’s all this can be: a chronicle of one boy’s experience in the Holocaust.

As noted at IMDb, the author of the book the film is based on [a “semi-autobiographical novel”] was “shocked” by just how realistic the Buchenwald camp set was. So much so he had to leave after only a short time there.

Even in the camps, contingency, chance and change prevail. You just have considerably less control over them. And these men were the lucky ones. They ended up in the work camps. If you can call what they had to endure being lucky. It just depends on how precious you view your life [and living it] to be.

Jews and “fate”? Like most things, it means whatever you need it to mean.

And just as it is impossible for almost all of us to grasp an experience like the Holocaust, it is impossible in turn for us to grasp the experience of surviving it. There are many different stories here too.

Look for James Bond.


Fateless [Sorstalanság]

György [narrating]: I didn’t go to school today. Well, if only to ask my teacher to let me go home. I gave him father’s letter. He asked what the reason was. I told him father had been called up for forced labor.

That'll do it. Just all the more so if you are a Jew.

Grandfather: You know what that Jewish fate means?
György: Well, the yellow star, for instance.
Grandfather: And much else besides. Thousands of years of relentless persecution, which we must bear with patience and resignation.
György: Why?
Grandfather: Because God inflicted it on us for our sins, and only from Him can we expect mercy.

Hypothetically?

Rozi: So people don’t hate you?
György: Who would hate me?
Rozi: Everyone.
György: But why?
Rozi: Because of this!
[points at his star]
György: Oh, that? Well, they may hate me, but I don’t think it’s me they hate. Not me personally, just in general.
Rozi: They hate in general?
György: In general, yes. Not you, not me, but…the idea of a Jew.
Rozi: Great. Because I for one don’t really know what that is.
Boy: What what is?
Rozi [despairingly]: Being a Jew.

Is there anyone here who does know?
What after all is a true Jew?

Rozi: I don’t know whether to be proud or ashamed of it.
György: You shouldn’t be either.
Rozi: Then what’s the point of wearing this rotten yellow star?

Let's run this by, among others, Benjamin Button.

György [hearing bombers overhead]: Will it drop or won’t it? That was the question. I just had to recognize the pittance of the stake, so that I could enjoy the game. I was beginning to grasp the simple secret of my universe. I could be killed anywhere, any time.

Okay, but surely some places a hell of a lot more than other places. Historically for example.

Rabbi [amidst the despair of men, women and children waiting to be shipped to the camps]: Without hope you are lost. And you can draw hope only from faith. The time of His victory shall come and all those who have forgotten His power will be one in repentance and call out to Him from the dust…

What else is there, right? At least if you are not able to achieve the victory yourself.

Man: Can you see anything?
György: A station building. I think.
Woman: Any name ot it?
György: Yes. A-usch-witz-Bir-ke-nau.
Man: What did you say?
György: Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Man: I’ve never heard of the place.
Another man: And you’re a geography teacher!

But they will all end up in Buckenwald. And then [for some] Zeitz.

Prisoner [observing those of faith]: They bear the eternal Jewish fate. Nothing makes any difference to them: they’re here on Earth temporarily. But they perservere because they’ve got an aim. Everyone needs some life-giving obsession. Something to keep their hope alive.

This is all just contradictory to me. Though, sure, no doubt about it: point taken.

Man on train: The main thing is it’s over, you survived. What do you feel now you’re home again, in the town that you left behind?
György: Hatred.

Though not towards God one imagines.

Old neighbor: Your old life is over. We were assigned a different fate then.
Gyorgy: But I accepted that fate.
Old neighbor: We all accepted it. We had no choice. But now we are free.
Gyorgy: We always were. There was always enough time. Things could have turned out differently from what they did. In Auschwitz just as at home when we bid my father farewell.

Could have, but they didn't.
Click.

György: Did you learn what it means to be “a Jew”?
Rozi: It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.
György: I tried to comfort you, but I had no right because I was a Jew too.
Rozi: Why, what are you now?
György: I don’t know. Maybe I don’t even exist.

The lucky ones?

György [narrating]: People only ask about the horrors, whereas I should talk about the happiness of the camps next time, if they ask. If they ask at all. And if I don’t forget myself.

Again, he was one of the lucky ones. In other words [as always], relatively speaking.

[iambiguous]

Based on actual events:

wiki article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Valley_of_Elah

This film came out about the time it seemed Iraq was on the verge of imploding and then exploding into utter chaos. Then came “the surge” and the narrative bounced back. To what exactly is still a political point of view. And it always will be. But one thing seemed crystal clear: the "best and the brightest" [this time around] ran the war from Washington as little more than incompetent fools. And almost without exception, chickenhawks. And thousands upon thousands of men, women and children [here but mostly there] payed a heavy price as a result of it. The "ultimate price" as they say.

But that’s a political narrative too.

The PTSS part is as old as combat itself. I came back with pieces of it myself from a “tour of duty” in Vietnam. Another “the best and the brightest” debacle from the military industrial complex. Nothing here about that though.

This is just one tiny little piece of it all. Unless of course it’s your own tiny little piece. Your son this time.

And then there’s the competency of the local constabularies. Don’t get me started.

Hank tells Emily’s son the story of David and Goliath, which took place in the valley of Elah, an area 50 minutes southwest of Jerusalem. This story is a part of the tradition of the Abrahamic religions. David, a mere boy, battled the giant Goliath one-on-one. This story and the title serve as an allegory for any warzone (in this case, Iraq) where young, inexperienced American soldiers (the ‘Davids’) are thrown in the midst of a hostile, unpredictable and chaotic situation (which represents the ‘Goliath’) for which they are ill-prepared.

The soldiers are given orders which clash heavily with their conscience, like having to run over people with a van if they get in front of a convoy. It causes them to become so traumatized and conflicted, that they try to cope in dubious ways, like using drugs and torturing innocent war victims. In a sense, the ‘Davids’ become the arrogant aggressors (the ‘Goliaths’) themselves. IMDb

Goliath in this day and age is the war economy. Try using a slingshot against that.


In the Valley of Elah

Detective Hodge: Well, it looks like the victim was killed by that fire site there then the body was chopped up, it was burned and animals scattered the parts, so…
Chief Buchwald: And you’re smiling like an idiot because?
Detective Hodge: Well, the military base bought this field from the city two months ago. City property only extends 50 feet from the center line of the road…so I don’t think it’s our body, chief.

Jurisdiction!

Police official: Sergeant Deerfield, this isn’t necessary. It’s not how you wanna remember your son.
Hank: Maybe not…but it’s the way he left this earth, so I don’t see as I have any choice.

Now that takes me back. To the body bags and Song Be.

Police official: I understand Mike spoke a little Spanish?
Hank: And you think he could’ve been a drug mule because he spoke Spanish?
Police official: No…because somebody cut off his hands and his head.

The plot [as they often do here] thickens.

Hank: Thank you.
Det. Sanders: It’s the least I could do.
Hank: I’d say that’s accurate.

To say the least?

Joan: I need to see him. I need to be with Michael.
Hank: He’s gone.
Joan: I need to be with my boy.
Hank: There is nothing left.
Joan: What the hell does that mean?
Hank: Joanie, for once in your life, will you take my word for something?
Joan: For once? For once? I seem to remember me being the one saying no…and you saying it’d be good for his character. Who won that argument, Hank?
Hank: Mike was the one who wanted to join. I sure as hell didn’t encourage it.
Joan: Living in this house, he never could’ve felt like a man if he hadn’t gone. Both of my boys, Hank. You could’ve left me one.

Let's run this by The Great Santini.

Det. Sanders: This boy died in a ditch beside one of our streets. Someone burned him like a cord of wood, leaving his remains for animals to chew on. With respect, if that was your son just back from Iraq I don’t think you’d be as happy about tossing this case off so you look better come election time.
Chief Buchwald: That was with respect?
Det. Sanders: That was my intent, yes sir.

Next up: the road to Hell...

[iambiguous]

You know what I’m looking for here: the extent to which it exposes the systemic machinations of crony capitalism or the extent to which it becomes a morality play pitting the more or less good guys against the real sons of bitches.

Take a wild guess...

Acknowledging of course how these things are always more complicated than can be reduced down to either/or.

And this isn’t the “boiler room” here. This is all the way up at the very top of the food chain. In fact, it’s a thinly disguised depiction of what happened to Lehman Brothers. And we know what followed from that.

Should we feel sorry for some of these bastards? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing is for sure—a few were considerably bigger bastards than others. And not a single one of them ever did time. At least not to my knowledge. In fact, most of them are busy now riding the current bull market. Though some insist it’s just another bubble.

So much of this revolves around understanding complex mathematical models [algorithms] these speculative “derivatives” are yanked up out of. That’s why most of us can still be duped: They can tell us practically anything they want. Then each side can get their “experts” to prove it.

The CEO’s name, John Tuld, rhymes with the name of the ex-CEO of the now-defunct investment bank Lehman Brothers, Richard S. Fuld. Lehman Brothers, like the firm in this film, found themselves catastrophically over-leveraged in mortgage-backed-securities in the financial crisis of 2008. They eventually declared bankruptcy, and Richard Fuld was heavily criticized for his involvement in these events. IMDb



Margin Call

Eric: I run risk management… it just doesn’t seem like a natural place to start cutting.

And does this come back to haunt them.

Lauren: I hope, considering your over 19 years of service to the firm, you will understand that these measures are in no way a reflection of the firms’ feelings towards your performance or your character.
Eric: I’m sorry??
Heather: She’s apologizing for what’s about to happen.
Lauren: Your company email, access to the server, access to the building, and your mobile data and phone service will all be severed as of this meeting. This gentleman will take you to your office so that you can clear out your personal belongings.

This happened to me after 27 years of “service to the firm”. Nothing at all like on Wall Street though.

Eric [to John]: You know I was just in the middle of a bunch of shit here that someone should really take a look at.

No not just any "someone".

Sam [to the 20% who did not lose their jobs]: You are all still here for a reason… Most of this floor was just sent home forever. We have spent the last hour saying good-bye. They were good people and they were good at their jobs but you all were better. Now they are gone. They are not to be thought of again. This is your opportunity.

There. That was easy enough to rationalize.

Peter: The volatility boundaries are basically set using historic patterns then stretching them out another 10-15%… roughly.
Will: So what’s happening?
Seth: We are starting to test those historic patterns.
Will: When?
Peter: Today. Tuesday. Monday, last Friday, last Wednesday and Monday. Two Fridays ago.
Will: Okay, I get it.
Seth: Fuck me…Once this thing gets going in the wrong direction…It’s huge.
Will: How huge?
Seth: The losses are greater than the current value of the company…?

Of course, Barry and Dubya would end up covering most of their asses. You know, "change we can believe in".

Peter [to Seth]: Look at these people. Wandering around with absolutely no idea what’s about to happen.

Cue Barry Bilderberg and the Deep State.

[iambiguous]

In the Valley of Elah

Lt. Kirklander: He’ll do serious time.
Det. Sanders: Yeah? How serious, huh? How serious? How much time?
Lt. Kirklander: As much as I could get.
Det. Sanders: Well, luckily for me, that means shit. You see these? Those are warrants. We have jurisdiction, you’re compelled to deliver those men. I want them now.
Lt. Kirklander: I am not the only one who made a deal. My C.O. Talked to yours. It is just one less headache for them.

Next up: doing serious time here.

Corporal Penning: …and then I look down, and I’m stabbing him.
Det. Sanders: You…? You are? And your friends didn’t try and stop you?
Corporal Penning:I think they were sort of stunned. They’re yelling. And Mike falls to the ground, and he’s dead. And Long is screaming, “Christ, what do we do now?” It was Bonner’s idea to chop him up. He used to work for a butcher. He knew how to work the knife around the joints. Made it easier. We would’ve buried the parts…but it was getting late and we hadn’t eaten.
Det. Sanders: You were hungry?
Corporal Penning: Starving. We stopped at the Chicken Shack. I liked Mike, we all did. But I think on another night that would’ve been Mike with the knife and me in the field.

The fog of war? Meet the fog of peace.

Hank [to Private Ortiez]: Fucking wetbacks. It’s always knives, isn’t it? You like cutting people up?

Grief-stricken let's say.

Hank: I saw a video Mike shot. Him in the back of a Humvee. Looked like he was torturing a prisoner or…
Corporal Penning: We arrested some haji who was wounded. And we were riding along and Mike was pretending like he was a medic. And he would stick his hand in this guy’s wound…and he says, “Does this hurt?” And the haji screamed, "Yeah, yeah. " And then Mike would stick his hand in the exact same place and say, “Does that hurt?” It was pretty funny. It became a thing with Mike. That’s how he got the name "Doc. " It was just a way to cope. We all did stupid things over there.

Let's just say that I know all about that. And then move on.

Hank: You got a minute? I need to apologize to you.
Private Ortiez: You got some real serious issues, man.
Hank: Yeah, that’s true.
Private: I got an honorable discharge, if you can believe it.
Hank: It’s the Army, I can believe anything.

Ask me about that.
Some other time though.

Hank [shows Ortiez a photograph of a body on the side of the road in Iraq]: You know what that is? Mike took it and e-mailed it to me. Why would he do that?
Private Ortiez: I don’t know what anybody’s told you. There are standing orders. You’re in a convoy someone or something gets in front of you, you do not stop. You stop, shitheads pop up with RPG’s and kill you all dead. First week in Iraq we’re driving downrange. Six of us in the back. You can’t see squat back there. Doc hit something. We hear it thump around underneath. He stops. Gets out. Drives on. Not a word. Later, some guy said we hit a kid. I don’t believe it. You ask me we hit a dog. We killed a dog. I don’t know what that is. No fucking idea.

Need to know as it were.

[Hank runs a U.S. flag up the flagpole upside down]
School Janitor: Just like that?
Hank: Just like that.
School Janitor: It looks really old.
Hank: It’s been well used.
School Janitor: And I shouldn’t take it down at night?
Hank: No. You leave it just like that.
School Janitor: That’s a lot easier.
Hank: Hm.

Amen?

[iambiguous]

Science

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” Niels Bohr

I'm right from my side and you're right from your side?
Uh, then what?

“How inappropriate to call this planet 'Earth,' when it is clearly 'Ocean.'" Arthur C. Clarke

Right, like that will ever catch on.

“Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off." Richard Dawkins

Or go to Hell?

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents... some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age.” H.P. Lovecraft

Or, sure, one of the hundreds and hundreds of old ones.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” Albert Einstein

Her eyes too. You know the one.

“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.” Carl Sagan

Anyone else here really miss this guy?

[iambiguous]

Margin Call

Seth [to Peter]: I made almost a quarter of a million dollars last year… for what… pushing some numbers around on a computer screen, so a bunch of glorified crack addicts could take that information and pretend to understand it, and then make a bet against some other jock half way around the world who if he wasn’t doing this would probably be in some OTB somewhere putting it all on number seven. And at the end of the day one guy loses and the other guy wins.
Peter: You do know it’s a little more complicated than that, right?

Cue the algorithms?

Sarah: And what is your background? Your CV.
Peter: I have been with the firm for two years working with Eric that whole time…But I hold a doctorate in engineering, specialist in propulsion, from MIT, with a Bachelors from Penn.
Jared: What’s a specialty in propulsion?
Peter: Well…in laymen terms my thesis was a study in the way that friction ratios effect steering outcomes in aeronautical use under reduced gravity loads.
Jared: So you are a rocket scientist?
Peter: Um…I was…yes.
Jared: How did you end up here?
Peter: Well it’s all just numbers really, you’re just changing what you’re adding up…and if I may speak freely the money is considerably more attractive here.

Next up: numbers here.
And bots.

Will: You know, the feeling that people experience when they stand on the edge like this isn’t the fear of falling -- it’s the fear that they might jump.

Or pushed?

[Will: So it looks like they are gonna have us dump this shit. Yeah, you watch.
Seth: How?
Peter: A trillion bucks?? How would they even do that?
Will: You can’t… it’s impossible. But they’ll figure out a way. I’ve been at this place for ten years and I’ve seen some things that you wouldn’t believe…and when all is said and done…they don’t lose money. They don’t care if everyone else does, but they won’t.

Right, Barry?

Sarah: It’s all legit…the kid killed it. The formula is worthless.
Jared: What do you mean?
Sarah: It’s broken.
Jared: There are eight trillion dollars of paper around the world relying on that equation??

Ah, the great recession!

John [to Peter]: Maybe you could tell me what is going on. And please, speak as you might to a young child. Or a golden retriever. It wasn’t brains that brought me here; I assure you that.

Oops?